Tag Archives: Prisoner Swap

Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels swap prisoners before New Year

A recently exchanged prisoner of war (POW) from the Ukrainian armed forces is embraced upon his arrival at Boryspil International airport outside Kiev, Ukraine December 28, 2017.

By Valentyn Ogirenko

HORLIVKA, Ukraine (Reuters) – Ukraine and pro-Russian separatist rebels conducted the largest exchange of prisoners since conflict broke out in 2014, sending hundreds of captives home to their families on Wednesday ahead of New Year and Orthodox Christmas.

More than 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict and casualties are still reported almost daily despite a ceasefire that froze the frontlines in place since 2015.

“My son rang,” the mother of a Ukrainian prisoner Oleksandr Oliynyk told the Ukrainian news channel 112.

“I have not heard his voice for three-and-a-half years, just letters. He said: ‘Mum, I’m already here.’ You cannot imagine what it means for a mother, to not see your child for three-and-a-half years, since August 2014.”

According to the terms of the deal, Kiev was meant to hand over 306 prisoners to the rebels and receive 74 prisoners in return. A Reuters photographer at the scene saw the Ukrainian prisoners being loaded onto buses in the town of Horlivka and taken to territory controlled by the Ukrainian government.

“All 74 Ukrainian hostages are already at home, on the territory controlled by our army,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote on social media.

According to Poroshenko, among the prisoners handed to Ukraine were a historian and a “cyborg” – the nickname Ukrainians gave to soldiers who defended Donetsk airport in one of the conflict’s most intense battles in 2014.

Prisoners of war (POWs) from the separatist self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LNR) board a bus during the exchange of captives near the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk region, Ukraine December 27, 2017.

Prisoners of war (POWs) from the separatist self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) board a bus during the exchange of captives near the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk region, Ukraine December 27, 2017. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

The exact number of prisoners exchanged is uncertain. Viktor Medvedchuk, Ukraine’s representative to ongoing peace talks, said some captives held by Ukraine refused to return to rebel-held areas, according to the Russian news agency TASS.

More prisoners are expected to change hands in 2018, TASS cited Medvedchuk as saying. The Ukrainian state security service said 103 prisoners remained in separatist hands.

There was no immediate comment from the authorities in Moscow, which Ukraine and its Western allies accuse of supporting the pro-Russian separatists with troops, cash and heavy weapons, an accusation Moscow denies.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes the exchange in a joint statement and called on both sides to release the remaining captives.

Germany’s foreign ministry said it was a significant step in implementing the ceasefire agreement agreed in the Belarus capital Minsk.

“Above all, it is also an important humanitarian gesture before the New Year and Orthodox Christmas,” a foreign ministry statement said.

The Minsk agreements, intended to end the fighting in Ukraine, were signed by Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France in the Belarussian capital in early 2015.

A prisoner (back) of war (POW) from the Ukrainian armed forces is embraced during the exchange of captives in Horlivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine December 27, 2017.

A prisoner (back) of war (POW) from the Ukrainian armed forces is embraced during the exchange of captives in Horlivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine December 27, 2017. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

The exchange came as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asked Russia to “lower the level of violence” in eastern Ukraine.

(Writing by Polina Ivanova and Matthias Williams; Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets in Kiev; Editing by Andrew Osborn, Peter Graff and Andrew Heavens)

Pastor released from Iranian prison thanks supporters, requests prayers for his marriage

The Christian pastor who was recently released after spending more than three years behind bars in an Iranian prison is asking people to pray for his relationship with his wife.

Saeed Abedini made the request in a Facebook post Sunday evening, which he said was his first since he was released last month in a prisoner exchange between the United States and Iran.

Abedini thanked the “Dear Saints” who sent “thousands of letters of encouragement and LOVE to the prison” since he was jailed in September 2012 on charges concerning his Christian beliefs.

He wrote he loved his supporters, adding their “prayers and support changed my situation.”

“You created a LOVE story that even Muslims in Iran talked about,” he wrote.

One of Abedini’s most vocal advocates during his imprisonment was his wife, Naghmeh, who actively campaigned for his release. But she wrote in a Facebook post last month that she took “temporary legal action” against the pastor, who she claimed abused her during their marriage.

“Three months ago Saeed told me things he demanded I must do to promote him in the eyes of the public that I simply could not do any longer. He threatened that if I did not the results would be the end of our marriage and the resulting pain this would bring to our children,” she wrote.

She added she hoped and prayed the couple’s marriage could be healed.

“In very difficult situations sometimes you have to establish boundaries while you work toward healing,” she wrote in the post, which also requested prayers and support.

The pastor issued his own prayer request in his post over the weekend, saying he has sought counseling.

“I am grateful for marriage counselors who have been helping me but my wife’s relationship with me is not good at this point, so we need prayer that she joins this counseling process with us,” he wrote.

The Iranian-born pastor became a United States citizen through his marriage.

U.S. pastor freed by Iran says he was tortured

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (Reuters) – Saeed Abedini, an American pastor freed this month from an Iranian prison as part of a U.S.-Iranian prisoner swap, said in a television interview aired on Monday that he was tortured and left in solitary confinement for refusing to sign a false confession and saw other prisoners being taken to be hanged.

Abedini told Fox News that while in Tehran’s Evin prison he was beaten by interrogators, left with an al Qaeda prisoner who tried to kill him and watched people screaming and crying while taken to be hanged.

“Yes, in interrogation once they beat me very badly because they wanted me to write something I didn’t do … Actually it was in a courtroom that the judge closed the door and the interrogators started beating me, and at that time I got a stomach bleeding,” he told Fox News.

“The worst thing that I saw was when they took some Sunnis for execution…Most of them were Sunnis, some of them were political prisoners…. I can say most were executed for their faith.”

Abedini was supposed to be reunited with his wife and children on Monday at a Christian center in North Carolina, but it was delayed because the family’s travel plans have been “in flux day-to-day,” a spokesman for the center said.

The Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove, founded by the famed evangelical minister and his family, said Abedini wanted time to adjust and reconnect with his family after more than three years of imprisonment in Iran.

Abedini’s wife, Naghmeh, told Reuters last week the couple would work on their marriage. She said in a message to supporters that became public that her husband had been abusive and suffered from a pornography addiction.

Abedini arrived at the Asheville, North Carolina, center on Thursday. He and his avid supporter Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s son, have so far declined comment.

Abedini, 35, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was sentenced by an Iranian court in 2013 to eight years in prison for allegedly compromising Iran’s national security by setting up home-based Christian churches there.

Abedini was one of five Americans released by Iran in exchange for clemency to seven Iranians who were convicted or facing trial in the United States. The swap was announced at the same time as international sanctions on Iran were lifted in a deal with the United States and other major powers to curb Tehran’s nuclear program.

(Additional reporting by Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., Ben Klayman in Boise, Idaho and Eric Walsh in Washington; Editing by Frances Kerry, Diane Craft)

Pastor freed by Iran to reunite with wife at North Carolina retreat

ASHVILLE, N.C. (Reuters) – Saeed Abedini, an American pastor freed this month from an Iranian prison as part of a U.S.-Iranian prisoner swap, will be reunited with his wife and children on Monday at a Christian center in the North Carolina mountains.

The Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove, founded by the famed evangelical minister and his family, said Abedini wanted time to adjust and reconnect with his family after more than three years of imprisonment in Iran.

Abedini’s wife, Naghmeh, also told Reuters last week the couple would work on their marriage. She said in a message to supporters that became public that her husband had been abusive and suffered from a pornography addiction.

Abedini arrived at the Asheville, North Carolina, center on Thursday. He and his avid supporter Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s son, have so far declined comment.

A spokesman also declined to say what resources would be made available at the center, known as a retreat to hear speakers, hike and pray.

“I’m sure they’re praying … trying to find out where he is spiritually right now,” said Joe Nesbitt, an Asheville-based Christian counselor with Grace Life International, who has spent time at the Cove.

Abedini, 35, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was sentenced by an Iranian court in 2013 to eight years in prison for allegedly compromising Iran’s national security by setting up home-based Christian churches there.

He was arrested after returning to Iran for what was supposed to be a short trip to set up an orphanage.

Abedini was one of five Americans released by Iran in exchange for clemency to seven Iranians who were convicted or facing trial in the United States. The swap was announced at the same time as international sanctions on Iran were lifted in a deal with the United States and other major powers to curb Tehran’s nuclear program.

Abedini became a rallying point for U.S. evangelicals, who saw him as a symbol of persecution of Christians. Franklin Graham and other pastors around the country called for his release.

Republican White House hopefuls spoke about him, including U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who prayed for Abedini outside the White House.

Naghmeh Abedini, who had publicly campaigned for her husband’s release, told Reuters last week their relationship was strained.

In the fall of 2015, she emailed supporters that she was pulling back from public advocacy and described “physical, emotional, psychological and sexual” abuse by her husband, who she said was addicted to pornography. Reuters could not independently confirm the allegations.

(Additional reporting by Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C. and Ben Klayman in Boise, Idaho; Editing by Frances Kerry)